It has not taken too long for the anti Green, pro logging "experts" to use the latest bushfires as a platform for business as usual and to spread hate against the Greens.He starts with the usual claim that unless fuel reduction burns are carried out there is the potential for a catastrophic bush fire.Findings from the investigation into the Victorian fires have shown that there is no difference in bush fire risks between state forest that have had reduction burns and national parks that have not.The researchers found that prescribed burning, touted as a possible solution after Black Saturday, offered only moderate protection to houses. Logging native forests also had no impact on reducing house loss. Clearing trees and shrubs close to properties was the best thing anyone could do on Black Saturday. "It was twice as effective as prescribed burning".The reduction in the forest industry caused by the Greens has lead to a shortage in skilled forestry workers and machinery to make fire tracks and fire breaks he claims.This is a red herring with the downturn in the woodchip industry due to the GFC and mismanagement by FT the main causes.How quite narrow firebreaks are able to control the fierce fires that are now normal he does not explain.Ember attack many kilometres down wind are not going to stopped by a fire break in a strong wind.

Posted by Robert LePage, Monday, 11 February 2013 9:46:00 AM

ContinuedThe fires were spurred by fierce winds and heat. To understand the intensity of the fires, one must consider that the forest had been cured bone-dry during preceding weeks of unusual heat.Climate change played a major role in the fires severity. This will continue to place even more strain on fire prevention and management.Let us not descend into a "blame game" and heap abuse onto a scapegoat that is easy to pick on.I feel that Mr Poynter is as usual acting on behalf of big business that wants to open the forest to more destruction with the aim of bigger profits.We see this in all of the threats that face the world not just Tasmania.Big oil has been proven to finance writers who produce denial articles that will allow the continuation of destructive practices.The problem must be tackled by new thinking. better equipment for fire fighting such as the dedicated flying boat fire bombers from Bombardier in Canada.All trees and shrubs cleared away from house by a bigger distance.Fire escape roads mapped out for isolated communities.In Bundaberg recently there were up to 14 helicopters involved in evacuating up to a 1000 residents from one area.It took private initiative to organise a ferry service to provide relief here in Tasmania.Just rebuilding FT's empire to provide more bulldozers will not do now.We must think again.

Posted by Robert LePage, Monday, 11 February 2013 9:49:32 AM

My take on this, and its a long article, is that the Greens support burn-offs in principle but are against any specific burn-off proposals. No way. It all too dangerous; these species will be endangered. Consequently nothing gets done. I am no great admirer of the greens. In fact, I would rather be caught in one of these bushfires rather than have anything to do with them, and this article reaffirms that view.

Posted by Curmudgeon, Monday, 11 February 2013 10:11:24 AM

...Another practice of forest management is clear felling in compartmentalized squares. This was a method much derided, but maybe its time now to revisit the old ways, under extreme weather conditions which appear now to becoming a norm rather than the exception.

...Cleared areas also give wildlife a way to escape the fire front.

Posted by diver dan, Monday, 11 February 2013 10:18:38 AM

Robert Le Page

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by a defensive reaction such as yours and its tendency to 'play-the-man'. For the record, I am not paid by 'big business' or anyone to write articles such as this about what is happening to forest management. My observations are given voluntarily and are informed by decades of working in this discipline.

You on the other hand don't display any great knowledge in this area, as is evident in your dismissal of why road and track access may be of importance to fire management. Have you not considered that perhaps they are critical to allowing fire-fighters to quickly attack bushfires as soon as possible after they are reported, or that they form the basis of control lines for both preventative burning or bushfire suppression?

Your reference to a study after Black Saturday to dismiss the value of fuel reduction burning is also misguided, although admittedly you are not alone in assigning it greater than deserving significance. The fact is that those fires burnt though large areas of wet forest types where FRB is not practicable, and other forests where there had been a low level of FR burning. It was also based on a consideration of houses that had been damaged by fire, and therefore ignored undamaged houses/areas where FRB may have been a factor in preventing damage.

There are many case studies documenting situations where FRB has prevented bushfires from reaching damaging proportions well before they could have get close to threatening houses and communities located many kilometres away, but of course these are largely ignored by those lacking in enthusiasm for FRB.

Similarly your denial of the role of Greens and ENGOs in reducing timber production and bushfire management capability is simply not borne out by the facts.

Posted by MWPOYNTER, Monday, 11 February 2013 2:54:29 PM

Robert LePage is actually arguing that how much fuel there is, does not make any difference to the risk of fire damage.

Yes you heard that right. Reducing the amount of fuel DOES NOT reduce the risk of fire damage, according to Robert.

By what process of reasoning, you might ask, does someone arrive at such an obviously false conclusion?

He appeals to the absent authority of government departments who were implicated in the recent conflagrations that destroyed so much human life and property; and who, surprise surprise, make findings exonerating themselves. They said so, therefore it must be true, according to Robert.

It never seems to occur to Robert that, just because he reposes blind credulity in obvious falsehoods spouted by vested interests in big government, that other people don't share the same methodology, and can see through his nonsense.

My property was recently burnt out by a fire that caused enormous damage and suffering. When we first heard about it, with the winds tending to us, it was on grazing land, but as soon as it hit government land, we knew we were doomed. As predicted, a huge fireball destroyed all life in its path but what was saved at enormous expense and risk. (Was Robert one of the volunteer fire-fighters?) The government had just spent $2 million re-introducing koalas to the areas that were completely incinerated. And this is the government's idea of managing the ecoystem for "ecological sustainability".

The farmers aren't allowed to burn the tussocks that reduce food production without crawling to government for permission, but the green bureaucratic priviligentsia get to incinerate the whole landscape without liability.